Lawmaker Express roars into town

Aug. 8—The rumble of trains has long been part of the heartbeat of West Virginia. While the less frequent but still there coal trains continue to wind their way through the valleys, passenger train service has become even less frequent. Three days a week, though, the historic C&O-built Charleston station has passengers loading and unloading a passenger train. A sliver of how things once were is again as Amtrak's Cardinal slides under the Southside Bridge and does its duty as a stopover between Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York City. Then all is quiet on the Kanawha riverfront until the next train.

Two miles up river this past weekend there was a railroading of a different sort going on: A Sunday evening special session of the legislature, officially announced by Governor Jim Justice 30 minutes prior from his Greenbrier golf course, teed up 44 items for express lawmaking. With super majorities, the West Virginia Senate suspended the rules and plowed through the list with a speed and efficiency that would make Amtrak jealous. The House, after a speed-reading of the proclamation for the extraordinary session that would make a professional auctioneer need closed captioning, broke the work up over the forthcoming days.

Forty-four items, ranging in importance from the long-overdue address of the corrections system to the fixing of legislation that had issues from the spring to the mundane maintenance of governmental services. While getting the session announced in a timely manner wasn't a priority for the governor, his team did have the forethought and time to professionally produce a hype video for the newly announced Summersville Lake State Park, which was item number 24 on the agenda for those of you scoring at home.

Priorities, and whatnot.

Taken on their individual merits, most of this legislation is indeed important, needed, or at least justifiable in some way or another. But the manner of addressing these issues, in a hasty sprint with suspended rules and very little debate or argument, betrays the seriousness of legislators and governor to take care of the business of the state they have been entrusted with by the voters. The question of "why wasn't this addressed in the regular session" could be raised on multiple levels.

Even a cursory look back at the spring session reveals the days upon days of wasted time, posing and preening over pet issues, and ignoring others was the precursor to the express train of "just pass it" we had under the golden dome on a Sunday evening. So much so, most folks involved knew then an extraordinary session would be needed, ranging from folks saying it with invective and bitterness to those cavalierly procrastinating to that later time. And the later time is apparently now.

For a super majority, the current ruling Republican Party should be answering questions for why, despite hands upon all the levers of state power, they are so darn inefficient at getting things done when they can do practically anything they want. The once mighty West Virginia Democratic Party should do some self-reflection on how it became a super minority in a two decade timespan after a century of super majority status. The imbalance, and the corrupting influence and lethargy that comes with unfettered power and borderline irrelevance, respectively, is not good for the state, its citizens, and if we are honest about it, the long term health of the political parties either.

The State of West Virginia has some good news lately peeking through the dark and dusty that is perpetually painted on the metaphorical sky. There are many problems yet to solve. But the future is not all doom and gloom, despite what some folks and a tradition of suffering sometimes claim to the contrary. But the future of a people tasked with self-governing has to be measured by how their self-governing is currently going. The legislative express of the extraordinary session is a blaring horn of shortcuts, taking the path of least resistance, and making things happen without the proper thinking, input, and responsibility of good stewardship our elected officials should have just beyond the current sessions of legislature.

Or election cycles.

Or even political careers and aspirations.

Those things all have their place as we move forward as a people, just as freight trains and passenger trains still have a place rumbling through the valleys of the Mountain State. But not properly balanced, restrained, and controlled to a safe speed, the chances of derailment and disaster are higher than acceptable, rather than reaching the brighter future all West Virginians not only hope for, but have paid enough of a price to deserve.